She would have turned 80 this year, but misfortune immortalized Janis Joplin at 27 years old. It's not entirely accurate to consider her the first great female rock star; If anything, she was the first to perform at these major festivals in the late 1960s in front of hundreds of thousands of people. She never believed she was the first: she carried with her the legacy of the pioneers of the blues and the first rock'n'roll (Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Big Mama Thornton); from folk (Odetta) and jazz (Billie Holiday). She was a contemporary of Tina Turner and Aretha Fraklin (with whom she wanted to compete), but the two began their careers earlier.
Joplin had been listening to very good records when she burst onto the music scene in 1966 and shined for less than four years. And this white girl from Texas has found in her albums and concerts the songs of those African-American women who came before and didn't get the relevance they deserved. Interpreted in Janis style, yes. Only. With this energy that exhausted her and left the audience speechless.
The best documentary to get to know the hippie goddess is simply titled Janis (originally Janis: Little Girl Blue) and is available on Filmin and Movistar+. Directed by Amy Berg in 2015, it has everything: intense performances, rehearsals and conversations in which we see her very spontaneously, interviews with everyone around her: her family, her bandmates, her partners. And above all, the letters that she never stopped writing to her family, in which she confessed her insecurities and celebrated her successes, messages that become the common thread, as if she had written the script.
There are nuances to the stereotype of a tormented girl who never fit in in her hometown of Port Arthur, where she endured harassment and felt inadequate, who found no sentimental support and who heartbreakingly channeled her anger by singing the blues. This stereotype is put into perspective because we also see a very excited Joplin since she moved to San Francisco, where she became immersed in the brewing Cultural Revolution; that she is full of joy when leading a group; that she loved the men and women who loved her, even when some betrayed her; who overcame his youthful complexes to build an iconic image of his time. Who was invited to the first major hippie festival in Monterey in 1967 and emerged as the winner. That he had three bands (Big Brother and the Holding Company, Kozmic Blues Band and Full Tilt Boogie Band) because it was believed that none were on his level. We almost always see her smiling, even when she confesses her frustrations, because she was silent neither in the interviews nor in what she said between songs.
This heroine, the artist, had the heroine, the opiate, as the villain. Her addiction here is linked to a personality prone to enduring the pain of others and to the need to escape from performances that were so deeply felt that they left her empty. He shot himself after singing so as not to affect his performance; However, at the Woodstock Festival in 1969 she was at the top of the stage. It wasn't his best concert, but it was worth it and one of the most famous. He managed to get rid of this vice, although not from alcohol; She wanted to get away from it all and traveled to Brazil with her backpack and a friend she made along the way. When she died of an overdose in 1970, she was widely considered to have been rehabilitated. The story doesn't support the self-destruction thesis: it was an accident, it was just a final tribute.
The tragedy took away everything that would have given us later. No, Janis wasn't the first, but she was one of the greatest. Her example paved the way for her not to be the last, nor could she be, nor did she want to be.
You can follow EL PAÍS Television on X or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
Get the TV newsletter
All the latest news from broadcasters and platforms, with interviews, news and analyses, as well as recommendations and reviews from our journalists
LOG IN
Limited time special offer
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_